Galid language
The Galid language was the language spoken in Galid, a geographical region ruled by the Galid Kingdom from around 1313 B.F.B. to 1111 B.F.B. The kingdom, one of the first states, was the cause of the language's adoption within the lands of the kingdom and immediately around it. Borizu, on the southern border of the kingdom, adopted the language, and reformed it to its own ends early on in the history of its adoption. It later spread it around the ancient world through conquest, turning the dialect of Galid spoken in Borizu into the language of commerce, law, government and prestige within its empire. Galid is still spoken in the Galid region, which is now considered to include Borizu and other neighbouring regions that adopted the language, and is still considered a prestigious literary language in the lands that Borizu conquered or traded with. It is unusual in that it has only voiced phonemes. Stress in pronouncing Galid words is generally fairly irregularly and randomly placed; accents may be distinguished through analysing stress patterns in a speaker's speech. Alphabet The Galid alphabet has 20 letters, each of which represents a single phoneme, or sound. The order of the alphabet goes from the vowels with the throatiest sound, to the vowels that are most forward in the mouth, though this was a traditional order that may not be strictly linguistically true. These are the first six letters. The consonants follow after, with the "soft" consonants coming first, from 7th place to 16th place, then the "hard" consonants at the end, in 17th to 20th places. The consonants within their classifications have no particular order. "Soft" consonants are consonants that have sounds that may be held indefinitely given enough breath, "hard" consonants do not have sounds that may be held. Once again, this is the traditional explanation, and may not hold linguistically correct. All letters in the alphabet are pronounced exactly as-is, regardless of position in a word or sentence. Grammar Declension of nouns Nouns have three declensions, depending on what letter they end in. First declension nouns end in vowels; the declension may also be called the "open declension". Second, or soft declension nouns, end in soft consonants. Third, or hard declension nouns, end in hard consonants. They are declined according to four cases; ergative, absolutive, instrumental and locative, as well as according to number, with singular or plural distinctions, and definiteness, with definite and indefinite forms. All of these are reflected in the suffixes given to the noun, which show some patterns. The lemma form of nouns is the definite singular ergative. Conjugation of verbs Verbs are conjugated by adding prefixes. There are no different conjugations for verbs; there is only one set of prefixes, which end in vowels; if the verb begins with a vowel, then a "v" is added between the prefix and the beginning of the verb. Most verbs begin with consonants, however. Verbs are conjugated according to the main absolutive or absolutives in the sentence; if no absolutive is available, then the instrumental is resorted too, and then if that is not present either, then locative, and barring that, finally, the verb will conjugate to the ergative. The lemma form of verbs is the unconjugated form, with no prefixes; this also functions as the infinitive, in many ways. Morphology Consonant and vowel clusters are not allowed in Galid. Compound words are formed by putting words together, and adding either the letter "v" or "a" in between the two words, if necessary to prevent consonant or vowel clusters. Syntax Sentences are formed with verb-subject-object order, generally, though because of conjugation and declension, it is possible to rearrange the order of words in a sentence considerably without obfuscating the meaning. Absolutives come before instrumentals, and instrumentals before locatives, where relevant. Adjectives, adverbs and adpositions all come directly after whatever they modify, generally. Semantics Imperatives are formed using such constructions as "you must" or "you will", and have no formal grammatical construct. Conditionals are delineated using "marker" words that open and close the conditional clause. Interjections are rare, and stand on their own, rather than forming part of a sentence. Orthography Sentences are separated by vertical bars, "|" and words are separated by periods, ".", while paragraphs are separated by empty lines between text. Writing may be done from left to right, then top to bottom, or from top to bottom, then left to right. No indication of exclamation or questioning is given through punctuation, though some texts will use a larger font, or thicken the lines used in the typeface or writing to indicate emphasis. Vocabulary The list of vocabulary, with English translations, is hosted offsite, here. Category:Language